Seán Sherlock
Question:242. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the status of the pearl mussel which is found in the Munster Blackwater. [16666/20]
View answerTuesday, 21 July 2020
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The Freshwater Pearl Mussel is critically endangered in Ireland and the EU. It is very sensitive to water quality and to land use management that may impact on the rivers in which it lives, including the Munster Blackwater.
In 2019, the national conservation status for Freshwater Pearl Mussel was assessed as being “Bad and declining” in Ireland’s report on the status of habitats and species listed in the EU Habitats Directive. (A summary of the report is available on the NPWS website at https://www.npws.ie/publications/article-17-reports).
The Munster Blackwater is a deep, dark and fast-flowing river, and is difficult to survey for these reasons. Data on the status of the Mussel in the Blackwater, including its current distribution and abundance, is incomplete. However some recent surveys of parts of the river found more mussels than were previously known in the main channel of the river.
In 2011, the National Parks and Wildlife Service drafted the “Strategy for Conservation of the Freshwater Pearl Mussel in Ireland”. This Strategy proposed a particular focus of conservation efforts on the 8 best pearl mussel rivers in the country, and at the time set out that it would not be possible to restore some of the 27 populations in SACs, including the Munster Blackwater main channel, because of the low number and poor condition of the remaining mussels, the bad status of the mussel habitat and the magnitude of the pressures in the catchment. With this in mind, the European Union Environmental Objectives (Pearl Mussels) Regulations 2018 amended S.I. 296 of 2009 in order to enable the removal of the pearl mussel as a qualifying interest for the main channel of the Munster Blackwater River.
It was intended that the Conservation Objectives for the SAC would be altered so that the mussel would remain a qualifying interest in certain tributaries, but would no longer be so in the main channel of the river.
However, in December 2018, a judicial review was brought before the High Court, challenging the making of the 2018 Regulations. In light of recent jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the application of the legal requirements of the SEA Directive, my Department considered it would be prudent to agree to an Order of Certiorari to have the making of the 2018 Regulations quashed. Accordingly, the mussel remains as a qualifying interest for the SAC.
My Department is currently reviewing the case and all of the evidence presented by affidavit. While the Department’s decision was made on foot of procedural matters, it was also clear that the scientific evidence on which the 2011 strategy was based has changed in light of further knowledge; and it is clear that no change to the regulations would be possible without extensive survey work in the river, a substantial and difficult task as outlined above. The necessary survey work would be likely to require 2 years to complete, given reasonable weather and river conditions.